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Tens of millions of voracious purple sea urchins that have already chomped their way through towering underwater kelp forests in California are spreading north to Oregon, sending the delicate marine ecosystem off the shore into such disarray that other critical species are starving to death. A recent count found 350 million purple sea urchins on one Oregon reef alone — more than a 10,000% increase since 2014. And in Northern California, 90% of the giant bull kelp forests have been devoured by the urchins, perhaps never to return. Vast “urchin barrens” — stretches of denuded seafloor dotted with nothing but...

Giraffe was on the menu in Pompeii's standard restaurants, says a new research into a non-elite section of the ancient Roman city buried by Mount Vesuvius' eruption in 79 A.D. The study, which will be presented on Jan. 4 at the Archaeological Institute of America and American Philological Association Joint Annual Meeting in Chicago, draws on a multi-year excavation in a forgotten area inside one of the busiest gates of Pompeii, the Porta Stabia. Steven Ellis, a University of Cincinnati associate professor of classics, said his team has spent more than a decade researching the life of the middle and...

University of Cincinnati archaeologists are turning up discoveries in the famed Roman city of Pompeii that are wiping out the historic perceptions of how the Romans dined, with the rich enjoying delicacies such as flamingos and the poor scrounging for soup or gruel. Steven Ellis, a University of Cincinnati associate professor of classics, will present these discoveries on Jan. 4, at the joint annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and American Philological Association (APA) in Chicago. UC teams of archaeologists have spent more than a decade at two city blocks within a non-elite district in the Roman...

A sea urchin with teeth that can eat through stone could one day lead to knives which never need sharpening. The creatures have self-honing teeth which allow them to chomp through stone, carving out hideaways on rocky shores. Scientists have now learned how the urchins keep their teeth razor-sharp and believe that technology based on the same principle could create everlasting bladed tools. Analysing the teeth of the California purple sea urchin, the scientists found a complex structure of layered calcite crystals held together by super-hard natural cement. Between ...

Envying the Tooth of the Sea Urchin March 31, 2009 — Did you know the lowly sea urchin has a tooth?  It’s not just any tooth: it’s “a remarkable grinding tool,” according to a team of international scientists.  They even used the word “exquisite” in the title of their paper in PNAS.1  Humans might benefit from knowing more about this tool.  “The improved understanding of these structural features,” they said, “could lead to the design of better mechanical grinding and cutting tools.”     The sea urchin “tooth” is not really a tooth, but a hard rod with a serrated...

Scientists makes good use of its surprising similarity to humans BAR HARBOR, MAINE -- Nov. 9, 2006 Who would have guessed that the lowly sea urchin, that brain-less, limb-less porcupine of the sea, would be the star of a multi-million dollar, worldwide effort to map out every letter of its genetic code? Or that the information gathered in that effort may eventually lead to new treatments for cancer, infertility, blindness, and diseases like muscular dystrophy and Huntington's Disease?James Coffman, Ph.D., of the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory in Bar Harbor was one of the scientists who helped decode the 814...